Better This Way
by MrsRen
Summary: They need to stop, but what are you supposed to do when the one person who makes everything better is the same person who makes everything worse?


**Tumblr Drabble Request D14: Facefucking. I ended up developing a minor plot here too (okay, mostly plot for a small drabble), whoops. Some angst. **

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It's just the stress of NEWTs, Hermione reassures herself, that's led to this. To heated tumbles in broom cupboards, on the sofa in the head dorm, in the quidditch showers, in the Restricted Section—

Fuck, she needs to stop meeting him, but it's not quite as easy as that.

Nothing ever is.

Hermione drags a hand down her face while shouldering her bag. Defence had been particularly brutal. All practical lessons filled with duelling against classmates, and Hermione just wanted to get to her bedroom as quickly as possible.

Granted, she reaches their dorm, but she doesn't get very far. Two steps into the shared common room, the portrait behind her flies open, and fingers latch onto the back of her robes.

"_What was that?_" Tom's voice is icy, abrupt, and he yanks her back into him. His arm slides around her middle, fingers digging into her hips. "Granger," he hisses.

She tears free of him, her heart pounding as a familiar feeling curls in her stomach. "Professor Merryweather paired us together. I wasn't going to go easy on you, Riddle."

His eyes sharpen, anger flitting across his face. "You've never gone easy on me." Tom growls. "Today, you went deliberately out of your way to humiliate me in front of the entire class."

Something about the way he says the last two words sound so whiny that she says as much before she can think to stop herself.

His eyes widen and she has the thought that she's absolutely, totally, mind numbingly _fucked. _

"I just mean," Hermione begins, wary, "that you've never cared what others have thought of you before. It's all part of that act where you retain your composure—"

"When have I ever been known to keep my composure when it comes to _you_?" He takes a menacing step toward her when she backs away, and it gives her enough time to absolutely know that she's fucked.

But it's hard to regret anything when she rarely saw himself surprised as he had been in the middle of Defense—his eyebrows shooting up, and his lips parting as he stared at her like she would catch fire just from his gaze.

Sometimes she's granted those moments in private. When her lips wrap around the head of his cock, and she takes him all the way down his throat, or when he pushes her skirt up while they're in the Potions closet for Slughorn.

"We can't keep doing this, you know," Hermione's voice is soft, hardly there.

Tom catches it though, and he freezes behind her.

"We'll graduate soon." Hermione continues as his hands move to the top of her shirt, and he slowly unbuttons each button. "I have an internship in France with a non-profit—"

"It's a waste of your potential if you ask me." He snarls.

"That's why I don't ask you." Hermione mutters, and his hands slide down her hips. "The point is, you'll be here and I'll be there. A clean break is best."

They've been doing this for months, dancing around each other pretending they still hate each other when they're long past that. And she's considered all the possibilities of how it ends—or maybe how it could continue—but it always leads back to this.

Tom doesn't respond to what she's said. His lips flatten into a thin line, and she lets him guide her into his bedroom.

It's familiar considering she hardly spends any time in her own.

"All we do is take out our frustrations on the other anyway," she mumbles. "There's other witches you can use for that."

Tom pauses in the middle of the room. "On your knees."

She arches an eyebrow.

"Get on your knees, Hermione," he murmurs, "or I'll put you there myself."

He's such a controlling bastard, and she almost says so. But it doesn't bother her as much as she pretends, and he knows it.

Hermione sinks to her knees, her skirt bunching around her hips as she stares up at him. She fumbles with his trousers, wrapping her fingers around him as her tongue swipes across the head.

His fingers knot in her hair, and he shakes his head.

Something delicious curls in her stomach as she realizes just what Tom wants to do to her. It's all about control with him.

Always has been, she thinks.

He allows her to take his cock into her mouth at her own pace—at least at first. Hermione takes him till the head of him meets the back of her throat and she keeps her eyes wide as he thrusts forward again.

And again.

And again.

And—

He growls, nails scraping her scalp while he fucks her mouth. Tom mutters that her mouth feels so fucking good, that she looks so good on her knees while uses her smart little mouth.

The corner of his mouth twitches as the last words leave his mouth.

But it disappears just as quickly as she gags.

Tears spring to her eyes as she watches him, and it's increasingly clear that he's not doing this because of their duel.

It's about her leaving him.

They've been circling it for a while now.

Tom groaned, pulling his cock from her mouth and come covered her face.

"Hermione—" There's something vulnerable in his tone, and she shakes her head.

"You know it'd never work."

He leaves her in the floor, still on her knees, with a scowl twisting his lips. His bedroom door slams a moment later, and hot tears well up in her eyes.

It would have been better to have a clean break, but that isn't possible.

Not with them.


End file.
